Friday, August 15, 2008

Still The One

I woke and sat up suddenly. The muffled sound of hybrid blasters and missile explosions echoed through the station. To battle! I jumped out of my bunk, threw on my pink bunny slippers and ran down to the hangar just in time to see Bluemorphium's Tempest docking up. It was pretty beat and it looked like he had either been the one in combat outside the station or he had run into a pack of very angry space beavers. Assuming it was the former, I went and asked one of the hangar techs what was going on.

"Fricken Python Cartel fella's are at it again" he told me. "Do you have a problem with those Python Cartel fellows?" I asked him, standing up tall in my slippers, trying to be intimidating. His eyes rolled. Whatever. I walked past Blue as he left his ship and I gave him the meanest look I could conjure. If I only we weren't in neutral territory here in the station, I would show him what I think of anti-pirates. Best to make my point out in space with some ion blasters instead. I launched my Brutix and was immediately covered by the massive shadow of an Archon carrier and it's supporting fleet of a few battleships and cruisers. So we were camping Bluemorphium in the station, eh? Not our usual form of entertainment but I'll join in. Not long after, Blue undocked in his freshly repaired battleship and we made sure that it was freshly damaged again as he turned around and redocked at the station. I yawned, stretched out and made myself a drink. We might be here a while.

A Taranis interceptor appeared suddenly out beyond our reach. About 150km away, he was sitting and watching us. After a few minutes he turned and warped away. Soon after, he was back! Just sitting and watching. I looked down at my Brutix. I looked at my vodka tonic. I looked at the station and sighed. I knew what I had to do and I knew how it was going to turn out. A few minutes later I had undocked in my own Taranis and was throttling straight towards my opponent. My gang would be able to warp to me and send in reinforcements but probably not until it was too later. A Taranis vs Taranis fight never lasts long and it never, ever, ever ends in a draw.

I landed on the other pilot and he engaged me just as eagerly as I did him. Hobgoblin's were out and flying. Light Ion Blaster's were spitting hot molten antimatter. The adreneline rushing through me made my head spin and I watched as we quickly melted each others beautiful ships into useless hunks of garbage. He was almost done. I was almost done. As the flames engulfed me and my pod was jettisoned automatically into space, I saw his ship also explode into a fiery ball of nothing. I peered out the little hatch window and saw Andrea Skye's Scorpion floating above us. I had lost the fight by a very, very small margin but my gang had been there to finish off my crippled opponent with a smart bomb.

Later in the station I examined the battle reports. While we had almost identical ship setups, my opponent had several advantages over me. He was older and more experienced, he was equipped with gunnery rigs AND he had the ability to overheat his weapons for extra damage. Despite all of this, he beat me by one gun volley and the fight could have easily gone either way. The reason things had been so close was because I had one thing that nearly evened the odds. One thing that every crazed, neurotic, suicidal Taranis pilot should have. Lucky pink bunny slippers.